Eating for good cholesterol

Have you been told you have high cholesterol levels? Here are a few tips on how to make small changes to your diet to improve cholesterol levels, and in turn, potentially save your life.

What is cholesterol?

Cholesterol is a fatty substance produced by your liver and found in your blood. Our body needs cholesterol for a number of metabolic processes. But, if we have too much, it can be a health risk. There are two types of cholesterol:

Low density lipoprotein (LDL) — also known as ‘bad’ cholesterol because it can block your arteries and increase your risk of coronary heart disease.

High density lipoprotein (HDL) — also known as ‘good’ cholesterol because it helps remove excess cholesterol.

It is best to have a low LDL cholesterol level and a high HDL cholesterol level. While the majority of our cholesterol is produced in our liver, your cholesterol can also be impacted by the foods you eat.

How does diet improve our cholesterol?

Bupa Dietitian Rosalyn D’Angelo says a healthy, balanced diet can help maintain normal cholesterol levels, while an unbalanced diet can contribute to high cholesterol levels.

“Eating a lot of saturated fat can increase your blood cholesterol, in particular increasing the bad (LDL) cholesterol. Trans fats also increase the LDL cholesterol and lower the good (HDL) cholesterol in our blood. Trans fats naturally occur in foods that come from animal sources such as beef, lamb and dairy. The way that some fats are processed can also produce trans fats,” she says.

Tips to reduce saturated fats

including more beans, lentils, legumes and fish in your diet instead of always eating meat.

What about eggs?

In years gone by, we were advised to avoid eggs if we had high cholesterol. However, D’Angelo says we shouldn’t be too worried about eating them.

“Eggs are actually very nutritious. As long as you’re not adding heaps of saturated fat preparing them, the National Heart Foundation recommends you can have up to six eggs per week without increasing your risk of heart disease.”

What next?

D’Angelo says cutting out all fats is not the answer. Instead, we should replace the saturated fats in our diet with healthy, unsaturated ones.